One Step at a Time
by korben600
Summary: Yang fell into depression after the Fall of Beacon. She'd like to treat it like she treats most normal problems. By kicking it in the balls and beating the crap out of it. But some problems you can't punch...


The aftermath of the Battle of Beacon was a blur to her. One of the medics had told her he was giving her anesthetic, and she didn't remember anything after that.

The next thing she remembers is the white of Atlesian troopers, handing her off to a waiting jet. She saw Ruby there, and her Uncle Qrow. But that's all she remembered before she fell asleep.

Next she woke in her room at home, with her father sleeping with his head on her bed. It felt like minutes before he began to stir, and when he did, he grabbed her in a bonecrushing hug. She could feel him crying into her shoulder. She could hear him whispering something about how he didn't lose her. But she didn't want to respond. She didn't know why. She was just tired. But she knew he was concerned, so she gently hugged back.

Every morning, she would wake up. And every morning, she'd sit up. And every morning, she'd just stop. Listen to everything. And sit back down. And hope she could sleep again.

The first week, her father and Qrow gave her space. She lost an arm after all. The second week was still fine, some injuries take longer to heal than others. It was in the third week that they began to suspect something was off. They would begin to ask her when she would want to start fighting again. She would dodge the question.

She didn't get up except to go to the bathroom. She would feign sleep to get her father figures to leave her alone.

Eventually, she got bored. Eventually, she found a cord long enough to go to the socket and continuously charge her phone. She began to read in bed. Not because she wanted to, but because she needed something to pass the time in between sleeping. It was difficult to handle a scroll one handed, but she managed.

The CCT was down, but Patch's local network had some websites archived from before the crash. Yang began to look up things to pass the time. She hid it from her family. They wouldn't understand.

The fourth week, Ruby woke up.

And when she did, she found Yang in the same place as always. In bed. Wallowing in her thoughts. But Ruby was still her sister. And she still loved her. So she talked. More than she had for the entire previous week. But she didn't leave her bed.

The fifth week, Ruby left. Tai was almost hysterical. He put that restless energy into trying to get Yang better. He would needle Yang into getting up, forcing her to come down to the kitchen for dinners, and lunches. Yang would admit, those were nice. But right afterward, she would go back to her bed.

The sixth week was when Tai stopped trying to help her. She would wake up and find food at her side. Tai would come in and leave lunch and dinner too. He'd mention something he wanted to do. It hurt to say no. It also hurt to realize that if she were left to her own devices, she wouldn't eat. She just wanted to go back to bed.

It wasn't until the middle of week six that she began to change. She wished that it was for good reasons. No, the real reason she finally began to change was a for an admittedly selfish reason. She ran out. Not of food or anything. Of stories on her scroll. Patch held a decent number of stories, but she read all of them, or at least all the ones worth reading. It was then that she realized exactly how long she had been in bed.

The first thing she did to change was unnoticeable to most others. She took her laundry down to the machine. It wasn't much. And she still curled up into her bed again as soon as she got back. But it was something.

The second thing she did was a little bit bigger than the first. She went downstairs to get a snack. It wasn't much. And she got crumbs on her blankets. But it was something.

The next day, she did another thing. A little bigger than the second. And the next day she did another thing. A little bigger than the third. And she kept going.

On the fifth day, she didn't do a thing. She couldn't sleep, and had stayed up a little later than usual. In the morning, she was tired, so she didn't do a thing. She could do two things the day after anyway. So she went back to bed.

But the day after she was tired too, so she didn't do a thing that day either. After all, she could do three things tomorrow. So she went back to bed.

But the day after that, she knew that even if she was still tired, she had to do a thing. Yang could tell what what was happening. If she didn't do something now, she would put it off again. And she knew, deep down, that each time she put off doing a thing, it got harder.

Her thing was smaller than the first thing. She took a shower, short shower, barely a quick rinse that was only slowed down by having to change out the bandages on her arm afterwards. But it was something.

And the next day, she skipped a few steps and did a bigger thing. And it was something.

Yang continued with this, until it became a routine. Doing something, anything, everyday that would shake her out of her stupor, usually adding to the thing she did the previous day. Sometimes she would do more than the day before. Often she'd do less. But she was still doing something. And every time she did something, it got easier to do it again the next day.

She kept at it, crawling her way out of her bed, out of her tiredness, one thing at a time. Until one day, she was sitting in front of the TV (because she made a thing of watching the TV instead of staying on her scroll one day), in clean clothes (because doing the laundry was a thing one day), with her hair washed (because that was one of the first things), and her face clean shaven (because looking in the mirror made her make overall hygiene a thing too). And she wasn't in her bed.

Tai didn't notice the little things. He just knew that one day, his eldest daughter left her room and sat in front of the TV. And that made him happy in a way that almost made Yang feel bad. But what would've been better would be if she left the house.

Tai tried to 'help'. Again. Telling Yang to come outside and help with chores. And she did. But she went right back to watching TV. He didn't realize that above all else, she was the one who had to do things. He did help, but when it came down too it, Yang was ultimately responsible for whatever growth she made, and she wasn't ready to really accept help yet.

Yang continued doing things. She washed her laundry, showered, and stayed out of her room. But she fell into a rut. To everyone else, she was much improved, she was doing chores, she was leaving her room, but Yang knew better. She was only doing the old things. She still wouldn't leave the house, really leave the house, and she was avoiding talking to people like the plague. She needed new things. Challenging things. Then came a new challenge.

That's when Tai brought the arm. Yang avoided it.

She didn't know why. Maybe it was the nightmares. Maybe it was the flashbacks. Maybe it was the phantom pains that felt like her right arm was still attached. In any case, she still avoided it.

It was about a week before something dug her out of a rut. Professors Port and Oobleck came to talk to her dad. It was the first time Yang had talked to anyone other than her father in weeks. She forgot how much effort it took to talk with other people. She also forgot how much she loved laughing. Really laughing.

And afterwards, when she was watching them leave, she heard them talking. About how her father wanted to go after Ruby. About how he couldn't because he had to take care of her.

She realized that for all the progress she was making, she was still a long way aways from finished, and for the first time in a concerningly long while, she remembered that Ruby needed her.

So the next day, she decided on two new things. Putting on the arm, and accepting her dad's offer to train her, to help her.

And the next day, she did.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm blatantly ignoring so much about Yang's PTSD, the trauma of losing an arm, and her abandonment issues (that were definitely not helped by literally every person she knew leaving her within a few months). This fic was meant to just be specifically about Yang's depression (though to be honest it really was meant to be more of a catharsis for me than meant to be complete story). But I hope you all enjoyed it!**

 **Remember, any medical advice given by me is likely terrible, if you suspect you have depression or other mental illnesses, don't take my damn advice (or by extension Yang's), see a doctor or a psychiatrist. They actually know what they're doing, most of the time.**

 **If you have a problem with my portrayal of literally anything (I suspect I butchered Yang's personality), PM me, or leave an angry review. I actually do read reviews and PM's even if I'm terrible at actually responding.**


End file.
